The economic development outlook remains bleak on this side of the Potomac River, as Virginia absolutely crushed Maryland in job creation last month. Just eight days after CNBC declared Virginia "America's Top State for Business," the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the state added 15,000 new jobs in June. That gave Virginia the third-highest job creation number out of all fifty states last month. By comparison, Maryland barely surpassed a third of that total, generating only 5,600 new jobs in June.
Maryland's unemployment rate rose to 2.8% in June, while Virginia's dropped to 2.7%. The biggest area of job growth in Maryland was in the government sector. In contrast, Virginia's largest job growth was in the private sector, in Professional and Business Services. While Maryland has only added 27,800 jobs total since January 1, Virginia was able to add more than half of that in the last month alone.
Montgomery County used to be a major engine of economic growth not only in Maryland, but in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. It has now ceded that role to Northern Virginia, as MoCo increasingly becomes the bedroom community for workers who are employed elsewhere in the region. In fact, a new Bethesda-to-Tysons express bus has just been proposed to serve those workers commuting to Virginia in the morning. Tysons - and Northern Virginia as a whole - continue to add major corporate headquarters, while Montgomery County hasn't added a single one in over a quarter century.
It's that high-wage job growth that allowed Virginia’s general fund revenues to end fiscal year 2024 $1.2 billion over the official revenue forecast. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin cited "robust job growth" as the driver of that better-than-expected revenue.
In contrast, Montgomery County remains focused on the revenue-sapping activity of adding bedrooms, instead of boardrooms. Aside from presiding over a strong biotech sector that was created by wiser leaders years before they ever took office, MoCo's elected officials continue to put all of their economic development eggs into the residential housing construction basket.
Instead of building a new Potomac River crossing to Dulles International Airport, completing our master plan highway system, creating shovel-ready job sites, and focusing on attracting Fortune 500 companies and aerospace and defense firms to vacant office parks from Clarksburg to Bethesda to White Oak, our County Council is focused on building more luxury apartments and townhomes.
Montgomery County Council President Andrew Friedson told an audience of real estate developers hosted by Bisnow on July 18 that “[i]n Montgomery County, we’re really trying to change the narrative. We have to view housing as the economic infrastructure that we have to build communities.” That's definitely not the narrative guiding Northern Virginia, Texas, or California. We're in real trouble, folks.
14 comments:
Don't forget places like Norfolk with its major port upgrade. The commerce they do at that port is more than Baltimore and that's huge for their economy. SC, FL, the list goes on. MD has been at the bottom for quite awhile.
They build housing in Virginia too. One can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Most people in MoCo don't want to see the level of growth found NoVa. We prefer pretty neighborhoods and the Ag Reserve to NoVa's concrete and data center wasteland. Maybe you need to write 10,000 more of the same article before you realize that?
7:07: Have you been to McLean?
bro go visit va more nice suburbs way the way to Springfield no crime around Tysons Maryland became too liberal
There are far more jobs available in MD than there are people to fill them and our jobs pay the highest average salary in the entire country. Until that changes, who tf cares about low income VA or any other state?
4:07: Look again at the structural budget deficits in Montgomery County and Annapolis, and you'll see why every Maryland resident should care about getting whipped by Virginia in economic development.
Marybund
10 lane highways; military industrial corporations stacking high rises in office parks; sounds exciting- When are you moving there.
Are you afraid to discuss the North Bethesda Life Science Partnership project? Apparently so. WINNING!
6:48 AM: I literally published a whole post about it yesterday.
MOCOs end game is everyone should be able to afford to live anywhere they want even if the county has to pay. We don't really need to work to do it. "You didn't build ir," (read: we all did).
" One can walk and chew gum at the same time."
Apparently not. And for those who decry all the building of business complexes in NoVa, we have perfectly good, useable VACANT buildings waiting for tenants - some for many years like the Comsat campus up in Clarksburg - yet no large corporations want to plant their feet in MoCo, or better yet, Maryland. The business structure in this state is not conducive to their growth. Thus, we have gridlock crossing the bridge, with Marylanders streaming into Nova for the high paying jobs. It is really that simple.
@6:30 AM FL? Really? "Florida Retiree Forced to Return to Work After Gov. DeSantis Demanded a $100,000 Homeowners Fee" Good luck to any idiot who wants that cesspool of retirees in Depends.
Post a Comment